Bank Transfer Day Turns into Bank Transfer Week

Well, I thought I'd wait until November 5th (today), Bank Transfer Day, to actually transfer money from my big bank to Prosper, the leading peer to peer lending marketplace. Turns out it isn't that simple. And seems others are figuring that out too, like my friend Liz McLellan of Hyperlocavore who noted on Shareable's Facebook wall that her bank is closed today.

My plan was to electronically transfer some of our money from Wells Fargo to Prosper this morning. I had already loaned out money on LendingClub, and so far so good - no defaults, only one late payment, and we've earned around $300 in interest since March. I wanted to diversify platforms and try out Prosper.

I should have known from my LendingClub experience that it takes a few days to transfer money. Once you register, they withdraw a small, arbitrary amount from the bank account you're sending money a few days later. Then you're supposed to report back to the lending site with the amount withdrawn from the originating bank to verify that you're actually the account holder. It's a smart way to verify, but it can take a week.

Once I was reminded of this, I was still determined to participate in Bank Transfer Day, so I clicked over to LendingClub to invest a token amount until my Prosper account was funded. That still didn't work. Even though I already have a LendingClub account, it will take a few days for additional money to show up at LendingClub.

So it seems Bank Transfer Day has turned into Bank Transfer Week. And we'll take it beyond a week until all our money is out of institutions too big to fail and in institutions too worthy to fail. If you've had a similar experience today, I hope you stick with it too.